Azkaban Can Change Anyone
by erisnymph
Summary: Rubeus Hagrid was another innocent forced to serve time in Azkaban. What must that have been like?


TITLE: Azkaban Can Change Anyone  
AUTHOR: erisnymph  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: What was it like for Hagrid when he was sent to Azkaban for a short while in COS?  
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. I don't even own the descriptions of the shrieks of the dementors. I was inspired by the ringwraiths in LOTR.  
  
  
He looked down to the left of him first, noticing one of the black-cloaked figures walking alongside him, holding onto his arm. The bony hands were beginning to pierce through even his huge patched coat. He looked closer. Was the figure floating or walking? Looking for an answer, he turned and looked down to the right of him at the other black-cloaked figure. They were definitely floating more than walking. But what did one expect from dementors?  
  
Hagrid took a deep breath and looked above the head of the dementor to his right. There was nothing in the hallway but stones and doors, with a dementor outside each door. He was so cold in this place. His giant body shook with shivers and goose bumps covered his rough skin. A shrill keening was heard and Hagrid's head snapped back to the front.  
  
A group of about five dementors floated rather quickly to the door of one cell before one bony hand reached out and pulled open the door. The scream became louder and Hagrid still swears, to this day, that he heard a dementor laugh. It was even more chilling than their mere presence because it wasn't a laugh. It was a high pitched, inhuman scream. Hagrid wondered if he could bleed ice at this point.  
  
The dementors piled into the cell as Hagrid and his guards passed. The giant looked above the heads into the cell and he saw a thin woman cowering in the corner of the dirty cell. The stench of blood and feces hit Hagrid hard, but tears flowed from him instead of vomit. The woman raised her arms in defense and Hagrid noted with some grim satisfaction that there was a skull branded onto her left arm, a snake issuing forth from its mouth.   
  
'She deserves it, she does,' Hagrid thought to himself. He was unpleasantly surprised when the dementors escorting him stopped in front of the door to a cell next door to the death eater woman. 'Blimey, I 'ave t' listen to her wailin' all day.'  
  
Hagrid shivered when he was nearly tossed into the cell and the door slammed shut behind him. He didn't need to look around to take in his surroundings. A small stone cell with a corner full of hay. Hagrid sat down roughly in an empty corner and let the tears and sobs come. They came with a vengeance. His wails must have attracted the guards from the cell next door. After all, the woman had gone quiet again.  
  
Hagrid didn't even notice the black figures in front of him. He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes, to acknowledge his surroundings. He knew where he was, and he knew that he didn't belong there. But that knowledge alone wasn't enough to save him for the night. The dementors stood in front of him, shrieking loudly to one another it seemed as Hagrid was drained.  
  
He knew he would never be the same again. He could feel his memories coming to the surface; the day he and Aragog were found by Tom Riddle- the fear coursed through him all over again- and the day he was officially expelled from Hogwarts- the sadness and despair was all he had again. He could feel the disappointment again, of knowing he let down his deceased father. It was all overpowering. He couldn't recall the day Albus Dumbledore gave him a job on the grounds. It just seemed so far away with this sheer self-loathing taking front and center in his mind. The dementors were having a field day with this. Hagrid started beating his large fists on the wall, a subconscious futile attempt to escape from the memories. He didn't think he could hate himself anymore than the day he was expelled and the shame was brought upon him and his family. He had wondered what his kind father would have thought had he still been alive, but Hagrid even felt partly responsible for his death.   
  
'If only I 'ad been a better son.'  
  
The shame came upon the half-giant in waves, and the dementors went into a feeding frenzy. It didn't matter to Hagrid, nor to them, the true reason he was imprisoned. All that any of them in that cell could feel was shame- one as feed and the others as consumers.  
  
Hagrid may appear now to be the same man he was before he went, but every now and then, the children who knew him best could still the haunted far-away look in his eyes. They were used to it before they ever met Sirius Black, but they knew nothing of the shame ensconced within the half-giant's mind. 


End file.
